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Somersault won all 13 Australian Film Industry awards,
but moviegoers have been delivering less than a unanimous vote.

At the same time the film was being lauded as a masterpiece by
the industry at the AFI awards ceremony in Melbourne on Friday
night, seven people watched Somersault at the Greater Union
Bondi Junction 6.40pm screening.

Down the hall the latest American blockbuster,
Collateral, which has the drawing power of superstar Tom
Cruise, had almost 200 viewers.

One row alone held nearly three times the number of viewers in
the entire Somersault theatre.

Somersault is being screened at only two mainstream
cinemas in the city. Since its release six weeks ago, only 120,000
people have seen the story of a confused teenager who finds herself
in the Snowy Mountains town of Jindabyne.

It has taken a total of $1.3 million at the box office.
Collateral, Australian Stuart Beattie's story of an innocent
taxi driver held hostage by a contract killer whose mission is to
kill five witnesses in a drug trafficking cartel court case, has
pulled in $5.3 million since it opened on October 14.

Of the seven people at the Bondi Junction screening of the
Australian movie, two did not want to comment on the film, while
Bronte resident Natalie Galea, 31, was full of praise.

"I thought it was excellent," she said. "It hasn't got the money
pumped into it - the big budget - but it was just fantastic, the
cinematography was really well done." The AFI judges agreed,
handing Robert Humphreys the award for best cinematography for his
work on Somersault.